The Mighty Angels of Daniel 11: The Treacherous Daughter

MP3: The Mighty Angels of Daniel 11 Prophesies

Hosts: Nathan Jones & Vic Batista

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The Treacherous Daughter

Vic Batista: In the next few verses of Daniel 11, God’s mighty angel provides the reader with a little bit more of a description of the various waring Greek rulers’ personalities and prophesies how they will act. Let’s get back into the war between the Ptolemies in Egypt with the Seleucids in Syria, with the nation of Israel caught in the crossfire. We’ll start back with Daniel 11:17.

“He shall also set his face to enter with the strength of his whole kingdom, and upright ones with him; thus shall he do. And he shall give him the daughter of women to destroy it; but she shall not stand with him, or be for him.”

That certainly sounds confusing, that is, until you apply it to the historical events that actually transpired, then the narrative makes a little more sense. What’s happening centers around the North’s Antiochus the Great, who sired a daughter with the very famous name of Cleopatra. No, this isn’t the Cleopatra of Mark Anthony and Roman fame. There ended up being quite a number of generations of Cleopatras, and this daughter stands out as the first notorious Cleopatra.

The daughter of Antiochus the Great, Cleopatra, was married off to the King of the South as a sign of good faith. Her father actually commissioned her to spy on his new in-laws. She was supposed to spy on the South and report back to her father in the North. Unfortunately for Antiochus, Cleopatra sided with her husband down in the South. She instead became a double agent for her own husband against her father. Maybe this was her revenge for being married off to the family’s bitter enemy.

A whole lot of political intrigue is going on in Daniel 11! How sad to think that the Greek Empire, considered the cradle for Western Civilization, actually divided into four parts that then waged continuous warfare against each other. No real cohesion existed in the Greek Empire, and yet this empire stands out as the template for modern-day Western society.

Vic Batista: Good point! We have witnessed throughout history leaders clawing for power and position. Some believe that might be the reason why Solomon had so many wives. It wasn’t so Solomon could brag that he had a lot of wives, but rather he acquired greater influence and power through political ties forged by marrying other nations’ daughters. Peace was achieved as no father-king wished to assault the nation his daughter now helped rule as a queen.

Nathan Jones: People often marvel how Solomon could have 700 wives and 300 concubines, as 1 Kings 11:3 reveals. Solomon courted 1,000 women! Solomon forged peace treaties with all the neighboring countries around him because the foreign kings offered their daughters as bonds. In other words, if you are suddenly related to your neighboring enemy, then you wouldn’t want to wage war on family, and so peace was achieved in the land.

Unfortunately, these poor princesses and their maids were basically sacrifices to be married off to other countries. Entourages of high born women would be married off to Solomon, with the princess as his wife and all her handmaidens as concubines. Every time Solomon wrote up another peace treaty, he received a new wife and her handmaidens as concubines, maybe ten women at a shot! It is unbelievable to think about in today’s politics, and marrying so many women is certainly unbiblical, but at that time such arrangements forged a temporary peace. The Lord says that the Jewish kings were never supposed to increase in wealth, as in the way of horses, gold, and wives, but Solomon often broke all three of those commands to increase his power, peace, and sex life.

Vic Batista: What a glimpse into how politics operated back in those days. To think this soap opera-like drama unfolding in Daniel 11 really went on. The Greek kings grew more powerful and more wicked as generations passed, and their agenda contributed to destroying God’s people morally by placing them in complicated allegiances.

Nathan Jones: The Greek warlords fortunately didn’t totally destroy Israel with their infighting because they had no problem using the Jews whenever necessary to bolster their positions and influence. Israel, after all, at this point did not exist as its own autonomous country. Once the Jews had been exiled to Babylon, they never again were allowed to be their own distinct country.

Daniel 11 will later briefly describe a point in time when Israel would earn a brief independence, but overall, just as God promised, as long as the Jewish people continued to rebel against Him, He would take their authority over the land away from them. Now, the covenant God made with Israel is eternal, for Israel will always have God’s promise to the land stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. That is a given. But, their use of the land was tentative based on their obedience to God, and they were continuously disobedient to God. Israel not being autonomous was their own ancestors’ fault. Israel’s constant rebellion against God and His authority is what got Israel into this position of being ruled by one foreign power after another. And so, the Jewish people were battered back and forth, back and forth, between the King of the North and the King of the South.

Vic Batista: Daniel 11 stands out as a challenging chapter to interpret.

Nathan Jones: Yes, it’s a very challenging passage, but only if you don’t go to the historical documentation and the archaeological discoveries which substantiate Daniel’s prophecy. How wonderful scholars exist who have delineated the history that actual fulfills these prophecies.

Once you do realize that history and the Bible line up perfectly side-by-side, and see how detailed these prophecies really are, the truth will blow your mind. Fulfilled prophecy proves that the Bible is truly the Word of God. So many liberal theologians attempt to pin Daniel to being written around 200 B.C., claiming the book had to be written way after these historical events unfolded because there is no way his prophecies could have been that accurate. In making such an outrageous claim, they end up disavowing God’s Word.

The book of Daniel has been well proven by scholars to have been written well ahead of the fulfillment of its prophecies. Other archaeological proofs, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, bear witness to the fact that Daniel was originally penned in 500’s B.C. Daniel then stands apart as prophecy accurately fulfilled later in history.

Vic Batista: More and more archaeological discovers and artifacts are dug up each and every day that substantiates that the accounts in the the Bible are indeed historically accurate. Biblical archaeologists are constantly finding artifacts at digs, leading historians to conclude the divinity in authorship of the Bible.

In the fifty-fourth segment of this series on the mighty angels of Daniel, Rome enters into Israel’s history!

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Lamb & Lion Ministries was established for the purpose of proclaiming the soon return of Jesus. We do not believe it is possible to know the date when Jesus will return. But we do believe it is possible to know the season of the Lord's return, and it is our conviction that we are living in that season...